How would you expect EA WSDNs to differ from current EA orgs concretely?
When it comes to worker cooperatives, I see the differences as all flowing from reducing conflicting interests. That is, in standard firms, owners are ultimately interested in profits and only instrumentally interested in working conditions while workers are ultimately interested in working conditions (broadly construed) and only instrumentally interested in profits. Worker cooperatives resolve this tension by making agents principals and principals agents.
This is an idealization, but it seems like the interests of all relevant actors in EA orgs (and nonprofits more generally?) are more aligned. The board and the workers are (at least in theory) largely (if not solely) motivated by the same do-gooding goal.
This lines up with what I’ve seen at EA orgs. People don’t always agree on how things should be run, but they almost always share a common goal. I also expect that most EA orgs are much more flat/democratic than the average private corporation. (For example, CEA has managers and people who are managed, but in most team meetings and on Slack, seniority matters much less than your direct experience with an issue and the strength of your ideas.)
It’s been my experience that while people in EA-aligned orgs usually share a common goal, disagreements about how things should be run, especially between a Board of Directors, and the paid employees of the org, is such that it is generally enough of a problem to be a point in favour of transitioning to structuring NPOs as worker cooperatives to reduce conflict between different vested interests. I believe this would be true of the non-profit sector in general, and not limited to EA. I’m not convinced EA tends to be dramatically better or worse on this front than other movements professionally based in the non-profit sector such that I’d put much stock in the testimony of any one individual on this subject.
I feel like you could easily say the reverse and argue that hierarchies are more important when workers are disinterested in contributing. Having genuinely motivated workers would make it more feasible to have worker management and capture its benefits.
How would you expect EA WSDNs to differ from current EA orgs concretely?
When it comes to worker cooperatives, I see the differences as all flowing from reducing conflicting interests. That is, in standard firms, owners are ultimately interested in profits and only instrumentally interested in working conditions while workers are ultimately interested in working conditions (broadly construed) and only instrumentally interested in profits. Worker cooperatives resolve this tension by making agents principals and principals agents.
This is an idealization, but it seems like the interests of all relevant actors in EA orgs (and nonprofits more generally?) are more aligned. The board and the workers are (at least in theory) largely (if not solely) motivated by the same do-gooding goal.
This lines up with what I’ve seen at EA orgs. People don’t always agree on how things should be run, but they almost always share a common goal. I also expect that most EA orgs are much more flat/democratic than the average private corporation. (For example, CEA has managers and people who are managed, but in most team meetings and on Slack, seniority matters much less than your direct experience with an issue and the strength of your ideas.)
It’s been my experience that while people in EA-aligned orgs usually share a common goal, disagreements about how things should be run, especially between a Board of Directors, and the paid employees of the org, is such that it is generally enough of a problem to be a point in favour of transitioning to structuring NPOs as worker cooperatives to reduce conflict between different vested interests. I believe this would be true of the non-profit sector in general, and not limited to EA. I’m not convinced EA tends to be dramatically better or worse on this front than other movements professionally based in the non-profit sector such that I’d put much stock in the testimony of any one individual on this subject.
I feel like you could easily say the reverse and argue that hierarchies are more important when workers are disinterested in contributing. Having genuinely motivated workers would make it more feasible to have worker management and capture its benefits.